Why Digital Comics Are Great For Kids, Plus 5 Ways to Discover and Read Them

Comics are a terrific way to introduce kids to storytelling.

According to the Canadian Council on Learning, comics can act as a gateway to more traditional novels for kids. They can help kids develop visual literacy—even before a child can read words, seeing pictures in a sequence can allow him or her to understand a story and interpret how to read images. Comics have also been championed as a great way to get reluctant readers reading. 

Comics are an artistic medium in their own right—a form of storytelling that can be just as powerful or fulfilling as any book or film. This One Summer, a recent comic by Canadian cousins Mariko and Jillian Tamaki, won several major children’s literature prizes, including a Governor General’s Literary Award and a Caldecott Honor (a coming-of-age story based in Canadian cottage life, this one is for older kids.)

“As a father of two young boys, I’ve seen first-hand how comics can help improve a child’s reading skills [and] their interest in reading,” says J. Torres, a comics writer based in the Greater Toronto Area, whose work includes titles like Bigfoot Boy and the spinoff Teen Titans Go! from DC's Teen Titans cartoon. 

“Comics encouraged my love of reading and writing as a kid,” says writer Jack Briglio, co-creator (with artist Alex Serra) of Growing Up Enchanted. 

“I think it’s the visuals that make the difference from traditional books. [Comics is] the only medium that gives you the best of art (what you see visually and how you process that) and literature (what you read and the world you create in your head with words) to create its own unique brand of storytelling.”

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For older kids or accomplished readers, this combination of art and literature creates exciting and relatable experiences that differ from chapter books or movies.

Many parents aren’t sure where to begin with kids comics. Some still associate comics with super heroes and Archie (both are still good!), but there’s a much larger selection of incredible comics out there. If you’re not lucky enough to live near a decent comic shop, it can be hard to know what your young reader might like.

Apps make comics instantly accessible and shareable. They also make them portable.

Digital devices can make it easier to discover comics for kids. Whether you’ve got a larger Android tablet or iPad, or a smaller-screened smartphone or iPod Touch, apps make comics instantly accessible and shareable. They also make them portable. This means your son can bring ten comics on a plane without weighing down his carry-on, or if your daughter discovers the world’s most popular comic, Japanese cartoonist Eiichiro Oda’s pirate-themed One Piece,  you won’t need to worry about where to store the nearly-80 (so far!) volumes.

5 Ways to Discover and Read Digital Comics

1. Speclialized comics apps

• Comixology is Amazon’s comics-reading app, available for iOS, Android and desktop computers. It’s home to most of the mainstream comics publishers and a growing list of kid-centred publications. It’s perfected a digital comic reading option that’s been adopted by most other programs: instead of seeing the whole page on your screen, you can choose to see one comic panel at a time. This can be great for smaller devices like iPod Touches and phones (where the text would otherwise be too tiny to read) and it can also be helpful for new readers who need to focus on only a few words at a time.

Instead of seeing the whole page on your screen, you can choose to see one comic panel at a time. This can be great for smaller devices.

• Sequential offers iOS readers a few more difficult-to-find titles like Canadian artist Eric Orchard’s Maddy Kettle and British newcomer EdieOP’s Maleficium.
• Some comics publishers, like Nobrow—home to the excellent Luke Pearson series, Hilda—have their own apps, which feature cool innovations like moving from a finished comics page to rough pencils and other behind-the-scenes goodies.

2. General reading apps

If you want to forgo the hassle of downloading a comic-specific app, an ever-growing number of series and stories are available through traditional reading programs like iBooks (iTunes), Google Play, Kobo and Kindle (via the Amazon.ca store).

This can also be convenient if you’ve purchased other digital picture books and want to keep everything in one library for your little ones. However, it’s important to remember not all these general reading apps or programs allow options like panel-by-panel viewing, which might make them cumbersome on smaller screens.

3. Web comics

Many digital comics are first published as books and then translated into digital versions computers and devices.

There’s also a huge world out there of web comics—series and stories that are posted online on Tumblrs or other sites before being published on paper.

More people than ever before are making comics without the constraints of typical publishing. Many web comics follow similar approaches to Gigi D.G.’s Cucumber Quest—"pages" are posted online for free at regular intervals and then collected into downloadable PDFs or printed books for purchase. 

One place to check for online web comics is Saturday Morning Web Toons, a Canadian collection of web-comics and digital reprints of older books.

With such a range of web comics, it can be tricky to know if a comic is suitable for younger readers. Scott Robins, co-author of A Parent’s Guide to the Best Kids’ Comics: Choosing Titles Your Children Will Love says it’s critical to check out a web comic first.

“A lot of web comics aren’t entirely geared toward kids—they fall under the nebulous ‘all-ages’ category, which is problematic. You never know if the content is actually for kids,” he explains. “I find a lot of self-proclaimed ‘all-ages’ comics do sometimes veer into content that’s not entirely suitable for kids.”

4. Libraries

Libraries are actually a great source for digital comics.

“Public libraries are increasingly integrating graphic novels and comics into their collections,” explains Catherine Biss, CEO of Markham Public Library in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).

"Often used…to engage reluctant readers, graphic novels are a format appropriate for all readers. Graphic novels often tell complex stories, which can be interpreted through written and visual cues to develop children’s reading skills, visual literacy and critical thinking skills.”

Using digital services like Hoopla and Overdrive, many Canadian libraries offer card-carriers a growing number of kids comics and graphic novels. Check with your local library to see what kind of comics they have in their digital collection.

One thing to remember: some of the apps that libraries provide access to use a fixed-format option to render the pages without messing up the layout, but this can make it difficult to read on smaller screens.

5. Manga

Manga is the Japanese term for comics. Too often, North American comic readers ignore the substantial manga offerings that have been translated into English.

There many great series' for all ages of kids here, from Chi’s Sweet Home (about a pet cat and its family) to Pokemon and Legend of Zelda spinoffs to Kou Yaginuma’s Twin Spica—an affecting story about a girl who wants to be an astronaut (definitely for the older-kid crowd who is OK with a good cry).

Manga is available through publisher apps like Viz or Dark Horse or in the Amazon Kindle store or iBooks.

It's important to know many manga titles are read in the Japanese style, from right to left, even when translated. Some worry this can be tricky to master, but most people who try it—adults and children —find it comes naturally after a little practice.

Deb Aoki, an expert in manga, says being able to switch from reading left to right and right to left is something that young readers are often able to do with ease—they’re particularly adaptable and flexible.

“It helps to start with manga that is fairly straightforward in its visual storytelling,” she says.

“For the most part, most manga has fewer panels per page than western comics—at most, five to seven panels. So, I personally find most Japanese comics to be less visually dense and easier to follow.”

Getting Started

With so much choice—translated manga, English-language comics, created for the web, adapted from a physical book—it can be hard to know which digital comics to try first.

We've rounded up 10 of our favrouite comics for kids. Let us know about other kids comics that your and your family love!